


puzzle pieces

by soldegira



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Eventual Romance, F/M, Feelings Realization, Fluff and Humor, Friends to Lovers, Humor, Michelle is bad with feelings, POV Multiple, POV Third Person, Post-Spider-Man: Homecoming, Precious Peter Parker, Slow Build, Slow Burn, crushes literally crush you, feelings are hard, more like acquaintances to friends to lovers, post-Homecoming, this ship is ruining my life, writes a fic based off of That Look
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-01
Updated: 2017-08-12
Packaged: 2018-12-08 07:54:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11642223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soldegira/pseuds/soldegira
Summary: Michelle doesn't really care, she just has to solve puzzles, and Peter presents a lot of missing pieces.(the process of Michelle figuring It out, dealing with having a crush on a masked vigilante who somehow becomes her friend, and Peter being cute and clueless)





	1. the toes incident

**Author's Note:**

> [Here](http://brainy-rainy.tumblr.com/post/163610329908/insp) is a visual summary of this fic that I made.  
>  Spideychelle is taking over my life. idk how I'll cope when we get more than three interactions between them in the next spiderman movie, lol. Anyway, I hope you enjoy :)

_Stupid smart boy._

That was the nickname Michelle had given Peter in her head. Ever since she came to Midtown and joined decathlon, she couldn’t stand him. He answered more questions than everyone. He knew more than everyone. One time, he had corrected Michelle on her chemistry problem. He had been right, but _still._ Who the hell did he think he was?

Michelle wouldn’t have been so annoyed if she didn’t see him so often. But with decathlon and having six of her eight classes with him sophomore year, he was basically always in the room when she was. And she hated it.

She hated that she began noticing his frequent absences and weird behavior more and more. She noticed how Peter always seemed exhausted, and not just the “overachieving high schooler” exhausted. Some days he was straight up dead on his feet. He was able to make it through classes and practices, but would either rush off after or stagger to his feet.

She hated it because the more time she spent around Peter, the more he got into her head. He was incredibly smart, and she kept expecting him to show off and put down other people, like she’d seen others at Midtown do. But he was always nice - he never talked in a way that made people feel dumb, and often helped others if the teacher couldn’t explain it well. She noticed how even though she was odd and didn’t have any friends, he would try to make small talk with her if they were ever put together during decathlon practice or in a class project.

Peter Parker was nice when he didn’t have to be, and to Michelle, that made him weirder than she was.

There was also the _huge fucking secret_ he was poorly trying to conceal, but everyone had their issues, and to Michelle, the kindness thing was more of a rarity.

* * *

With the decathlon season over, Michelle didn’t see Peter as often as she used to. Not that he ever stayed in one place for long, but his appearances became especially sparse with the team only meeting once a week in their off-season. He also only showed up about half the time and usually ended up sprinting out of the room as soon as practice was dismissed.

Michelle honestly didn’t care that much about why Peter was acting so weird. It was just an unknown, and Michelle hated unknowns; Peter acting uncharacteristically weird served as a missing piece of a puzzle.

She had all the factors of Peter’s puzzle, but didn’t connect them until the truth literally smacked her in the face.

It was a rainy Wednesday in November when the 7-11 close to Michelle’s house was robbed, and she was inconveniently inside of it.

She hadn’t planned to be long; she was about to start her period, and picked up some pads since she was running low. She had just spotted the box she was looking for when the poppy, low-volume music overhead was drowned out by “ _Hands up! Everyone down, NOW!”_

She couldn’t breathe, and felt like a needle was poking into her lungs. It was a dingy part of Queens, and these guys just wanted some free cash, she reasoned. As long as the cashier didn’t try anything and she stayed down, everything would be fine.

As Michelle’s thoughts trailed off to focusing on breathing the correct amount of air so she didn’t pass out, she heard the door jingle open. The needle was gone, and she could breathe again; the robbers were gone.

Then she heard Peter’s stupid, snarky voice, and the prickly feeling increased ten-fold.

“Hiya, guys! There was a job fair for that new mall last week, in case the whole convenience-store robbing bit gets...inconvenient.”

Gunshots went off, and her heart started beating overtime. _What the fuck is Parker doing taunting robbers with guns??_

After only a few shots, there was only silence and the store music playing. She heard some sort of _whooshing_ sound, and then the cashier gratefully thanking someone - _Peter_?

Michelle heard Peter replying to the cashier, and now that the threat was eliminated, she felt her head spin with all of the missing puzzle pieces. She slowly got up from her spot on the ground to ask Peter what the fuck he was doing here, when she realized his head of neat brown hair wasn’t anywhere. Instead, standing in front of the cashier was Spider-Man. On the ground, the robbers were completely webbed up and incapacitated.

Michelle was pretty sure that a part of her brain imploded as the pieces fit together before her eyes.

* * *

Michelle was introverted, but not exactly quiet. If something was awry, she spoke up; if someone treated her like shit, she would throw it right back. But in this bizarre, insane, perception-of-the-world-altering circumstance, she had nothing. She felt physically incapable of response.

Despite her trepidation, she never doubted that Peter was Spider-Man once she connected the dots. It was definitely his voice that she’d heard, before she even saw him in the suit. And once that little link appeared, everything else fit neatly together. Spider-Man being in D.C. (like Peter), even though he was known to operate in Queens, Peter not showing up for the competition, Peter being flaky even though it seemed contradictory to his character (which Michelle was only a casual observer of), Peter working long hours as an intern at Stark Industries even though he was only in high school...it all fit.

When Michelle usually solved a problem, there was nothing but satisfaction. Even if the results weren’t what she was hoping for - a precipitate forming in chem lab when there shouldn’t be, Sylvia Plath’s metaphors in _Lady Lazarus_ evincing traces of some anti-semitism - she had direct results that she could work with. But this new information about Peter just felt heavy. She felt weighed down by it, and had no idea what to do with it. It felt like Peter’s alter-ego secret was concrete tied to her ankles, pulling her to the bottom of the sea.

How would she look him in the eye ever again? She felt like as soon as she saw him the next day in school, that she would immediately spill it all out to him.

...which she could do, feasibly. There was nothing stopping her. She wouldn’t tell anyone else - it wasn’t her secret to tell - but she could tell him that she knew. That she was in the 7-11 last night and heard his voice and just _knew._ But something was stopping her.

Michelle generally never interfered with people’s lives. Unless what they were doing was directly harmful in some way, she didn’t care; and Peter’s situation was the opposite of harmful - he helped people every day. He was on the news. He was a fully-fledged superhero. And it terrified the shit out of Michelle.

She didn’t understand why, though. She and Peter weren’t really friends; they were maybe friendly acquaintances on a good day. She observed him a lot, but that was due to her innately observant nature and Peter acting weird (because he’s _fucking Spider-Man_ ).

This was the last piece to the Puzzle of Parker (yeah, she created a name for it, she’s also incredibly organized, it’s _not weird_ ). Maybe if she focused hard enough, she could will herself into a state of not caring. Michelle tended to be particularly selective on that sort of thing, so it shouldn’t be too difficult, she thought.

* * *

The last piece hit her like a train. It was the Friday of the same week when Michelle heard Peter/Spider-Man in the 7-11, and the girl was seriously considering if Peter was going to give her a heart condition one day.

She hadn’t been sleeping well those past couple of days (nightmares, conjectures about how Peter’s powers worked, and how to shorten her English paper from eleven pages to two), and that morning when she got her textbooks from her locker, her limb movements were so miscalculated that she went to close her locker with the arm that was holding her books. They unceremoniously and mercilessly fell onto her feet. Thankfully, there weren’t many people in the halls to hear her resounding “Oh, _fuuuuck_!”

There weren’t many people, but of course, since the fates were probably eating popcorn and watching her suffer from above, Peter was one of those few people.

“Jeez, Michelle, are you okay?” he asked from above; she’d crumpled to the ground to cradle her probably black toes.

Her look was a mixture of incredulous and scathing. “Yeah, I’m all set to make it to my ballet class later today.”

Peter’s head tilted like a dog’s as he asked, “You take ballet?”

“No, goddammit. Are you going to help or just stare at me suffering?” Even though she was talking to Peter, she felt that the latter sentence applied to the universe as well.

Peter stuttered out some apologies as he bent down to help her walk. After arguing over whether she should go the nurse or to go straight to class (Michelle: “I’m fine, I can walk it off,” vs. Peter: “You should let the nurse make sure your toes haven’t fallen off,”), Peter helped her go to the nurse’s office.

The walk was slow, since Michelle was heavily relying on her heels to walk, even with Peter’s help. She had her arm around his neck, and his had a steady, but not overly constricting, grip on her waist. She tried not to think about how he could probably easily lift her above his head without breaking a sweat.

“Michelle, are you seriously okay?” he asked ten minutes later. It usually took no more than five minutes to reach the nurse from where they’d started. Since they were so close, he most likely heard her small squeaks of pain whenever she stepped too hard on her feet.

“If you need to leave, I can walk on my own,” she said. She looked at his face to gauge his reaction, and didn’t like what she saw: genuine concern.

“No, no, no, it’s just that I can tell you’re hurting,” and he suddenly looked up, seemed to consider a thought, and then nodded his head as he made a decision. Then her feet were off the ground.

 _“Parker!_ ”

“What? Now you don’t have to walk, and it’ll be quicker.” He was annoyingly chipper at picking Michelle up like a rag doll. Michelle felt livid.

But he was right, so she huffed and rolled her eyes. “The next time you grace us with your presence at decathlon practice, I’m _so_ grilling you in the humanities sections.”

Peter kept smiling as he walked, unperturbed by Michelle’s constant stream of threats. She mainly kept talking to distract herself from her senses; due to their proximity she realized that the laundry detergent he used must be top-dollar, because his clothes smelled amazing. Sweet, but not sugary - like baking bread. _Was that a scent they sold?_ Peter also had an irritatingly defined jaw line. And his hair looked really soft…

Michelle slapped herself out of ogling Peter when they reached the nurse’s office and he set her gently on her feet. She’d expected him to leave, but he stepped in front of her and opened the door for her. Which she would have protested, if she’d been able to get the door herself at the time. Instead, she narrowed her eyes at him and she limped inside.

_Stupid smart, secretly super-powered boys…_

As Michelle predicted, going to the nurse was useless. She just gave Michelle some ice (which is all that school nurses can do anyway, Midtown could just replace their nurse with an ice machine if they needed to make budget cuts) and told her to not walk too fast or run for a few days. She did receive a pass to explain why she was late to her teachers if she walked too slow due to slamming books of knowledge on her feet; so maybe an ice machine couldn’t do that.

She walked back into the waiting room, and that’s when the truth hit her harder than her demonic textbooks hit her feet. Peter was sitting in the waiting area, humming some song under his breath, and waiting for her to come out. Waiting for her. When he noticed her standing there, he smiled and started asking her what the diagnosis was. “Will they have to amputate? Are you gonna turn into one of those myths where there’s an evil magician with four toes? Could Michelle Jones be the first ballerina to achieve the perfect on-pointe because there are no toes to get in her way?”

She had a crush on Peter Parker.

It made no logical sense; Peter was a short white boy with thin lips, weird eyebrows, and a dangerous vigilante streak, and yet there she was, with her heart trying to leap out of her throat and her self-awareness falling from the top of a thirty-story building. Because when he was walking her to the nurse she noticed that there are small smatterings of freckles on his nose and his eyes reminded her of soft chocolate candies and despite how dorky he was, he was obviously a good person, which she knew before the spandex extracurriculars were discovered.

Michelle hadn’t been listening, but noticed when he grinned at her and effectively shattered her attempt at apathy. “What, no giving me the birds this time?”

The fates were probably howling in laughter.


	2. heart problems

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I dedicate this chapter to pictures of Zendaya smiling without makeup on, because that translates to Michelle smiling in my head. Anyway, enjoy and let me know what you think.

The combined insanity of figuring out Peter was Spider-Man and that she had a crush on him was too much for Michelle. Sarcastic conjectures about Peter giving her a heart condition were becoming a bit too realistic for Michelle’s taste.

So, she decided to back off. She’d finished her goddam puzzle (a bit too well) and now she could move on with her life. The night of the dreaded toes incident, she attempted to compartmentalize her feelings about Peter into a neat little box that would be thrown into an erupting volcano, never to be seen again.

Then, the next morning, her box of repressed feelings erupted to slap her in the face.

The news was always playing in Michelle’s house. Even though her father was usually working (which he was on the Saturday in question), he would leave it on for Michelle after he left the house. Michelle didn’t know why exactly - so that the silence of an empty house wouldn’t somehow scare Michelle? Maybe it made him feel better about being gone all the time, to have some noise left behind after him? Either way, Michelle liked hearing the news so she appreciated it, in a dissociated way.

That day, he’d left it on a local station instead of CNN or MSNBC. Since it was Saturday morning, Michelle was expecting to hear about the shootings and robberies that happened the previous night. As she poured milk over her Reese’s Puffs, she listened to the broadcaster describe how Spider-Man had apprehended an ATM robber.

Wait.

She abandoned her cereal and rewound the footage to the beginning. “Last night, a forty-eight year old man named Robert Hughes attempted to rob an ATM in the Jamaica area. The local vigilante, Spider-Man, successfully apprehended Hughes, leaving him ‘webbed up,’ as people are calling it, next to the ATM with a note. It read: ‘ATM robber with a loaded gun in his jacket. Have a nice night! -Spider-Man.’”

Michelle’s eyes were glued to the screen, even as the reporters switched to other news. She knew Spider-Man dealt with dangerous criminals all the time, but since finding out Peter was Spider-Man, she must have subconsciously dulled down that concept in her head. He’d even stopped a robbery right in front of her, but she had been so preoccupied with her mind exploding from uncovering his identity that she hadn’t deduced beyond that. But, as she stared at the TV without actually listening, it fell into place. Peter, a fifteen-year-old kid, was flying through Queens in tights amid bullets and knives and crazy people. Her Peter - the smartest kid in decathlon, the one who helped her with chemistry if she asked, the one who helped her to the nurse and waited for her afterwards to make snarky comments with thinly veiled concern - was literally risking his life every night.

She felt an odd combination of protectiveness and mind-numbing fear course through her. Even if he did have superpowers and a fancy suit, he was still a kid. Did his aunt know? Did Ned know? Surely one of them could talk sense into him.

But if those two didn’t know, then it had to be for a reason; it made sense for Peter to not tell them, so they didn’t get caught up in his risks. Was he really all alone in this?

_No. Peter is...not grown, but his own person. If this is how he wants to spend his time, I have no right to tell him otherwise._

She’d tried to go about the rest of her day. She tried to re-establish the neat box that she’d crammed her feelings into. But the box didn’t hold, and her hands couldn’t stop shaking, so she did something that she would later be both embarrassed and grateful for: she texted Peter.

_MJ (10:44AM): do you have a partner for the English project?_

_Peter (11:30AM): nope. Wanna be partners, partner?_

When she got his response, she almost groaned at his corniness. Maybe spending actual time with him would put her in a state of casual neutrality.

_MJ (11:33AM): That’d be great. I know it’s sudden, but would you be able to work on it today? Just because I’m busy tomorrow and the week tends to be busy._

This was a lie; she just needed to see him to calm down. Which was antithetical to her ideal neutrality...

_Peter (11:40AM): Sure! i just cleared w my aunt. Wanna go to the astoria library?_

Astoria was a nice library, and as nice things tended to live far from the Jones residence, it took her a long time to get there. But she got there, because Peter probably lived in a nice area near Astoria and she could always spend a lot of time in a library.

* * *

Michelle got to the library an hour earlier than she’d told Peter to meet up. She did so on purpose, since public transportation could be unreliable, she wanted to get a good study room, and being around all of the books calmed her irritating nerves down. She was both dismayed and excited when she saw Peter wandering around outside the study room fifteen minutes early; she had been expecting a bit longer to calm down, but she was also ready to get everything started. It definitely had nothing to do with the wasp-like butterflies in her stomach.

She had to make an effort to not be overly excited about seeing him, though. Firstly, she had to maintain some semblance of her street cred (well, more like ‘magnet-school cred’) and secondly, she was not going to turn into mush around a guy just because he had a cute face. And had news videos of him doing adorable shit like give old ladies directions and rescuing cats from trees when he masked up to be a spandex paladin. _This is gonna be a long day._

Notwithstanding, Michelle felt physically more calm once he was safely sitting in front of her behind his laptop. She knew that she kept looking at him, but she couldn’t help it; she just couldn’t picture this short dork dodging bullets. She found herself trying to find oddly-placed bruises or scrapes to make the double-identity more concrete, regardless of her certain she was of it. Even if she saw something completely definitive, like Peter in the suit with the mask off, Michelle expected that there would still be a disconnect between the Peter she knew and the vigilante that New York knew.

Somewhere along this thought process, she felt the desire to hear him say that he was Spider-Man. It was silly; she already knew, and him affirming it would change literally nothing. Maybe she just wanted to hear him say in his own words how he was successfully handling school and life along with being a superhero.  

They had been talking about college admissions when she saw a decent opening for her new plan. “So, how’s your Stark internship going?” she asked.

“Uhhh, it’s good!” he said, and quickly looked back and the computer screen.

_He’s so obvious, holy crap._

“What do you actually do, anyway?”

His answer was robotic and rehearsed. “I’m a probability data analyst. I run equations to predict how well Mr. Stark’s inventions will work.”

“Why doesn’t he do that himself?”

Peter froze. “What d’ya mean?”

She knew that nothing would come from this interrogation, but after all the stress he’d unknowingly put her through, it felt nice to see him squirm a little. And it was hilarious.

Michelle leaned a bit closer to him from across the table. “Stark is a genius who has his own personal AI butler, who can do all of that whenever he wants.” Peter began frowning at his computer screen. “Why does he need a high school kid to do it?”

“It’s-it’s like a, um, outreach thing. Yeah, yeah. It’s to give kids from low-income areas opportunities to get their feet in the door.”

Michelle looked him dead in the eye. “Why are you talking like you just made that up right now?”

Peter sighed. “Maybe it’s because you’ve been acting crazy nice all day, and all of a sudden you’re interrogating me?” His cheeks were tinged red, and his mouth was set in a thin line.

Michelle felt a sharp drop in her stomach. Peter hadn’t even yelled, he was just frustrated - and justly so, since she was literally digging her nails into a deep secret of his. It still annoyingly bothered her, though.

“Calm down, Parker. I’m just trying to figure out what to tell Harrison when you flake out on us next decathlon season.” She tried to keep her voice sharp as usual, but felt that she faltered a bit near the end.

Peter looked up from his screen, but she quickly looked down. This was a bad idea; why would he ever tell her? They weren’t even friends. She shouldn’t even care so much about Peter’s spandex hobbies. She hadn’t tried hard enough to scrub out her illogical feelings.

Her musings were interrupted by Peter’s softened voice.

“Ugh, I’m sorry, Michelle. I’m just really strung-up from school and the internship and stuff.” He was rubbing his eyes as he talked, but ended up looking at her with pleading brown eyes full of apology.

“You know that you don’t have to deal with this stuff alone, right?” she asked, suddenly solemn. She ignored his curious expression and wide eyes. “I mean, everyone has stuff going on. I’m sure Ned or your aunt could act as stress sponges if you need them to.”

She hadn’t been joking, but Peter laughed. “ _Stress sponges..._ I guess that could be useful. I definitely have enough to go around.”

Because Michelle must have been slowly becoming a masochist, she continued. “And you know, I know we’re not really friends, but I can listen and not be a sarcastic asshole.” She averted her eyes, even as she felt Peter staring at her. “Sometimes, when the planets align and a shooting star occurs.”

“I appreciate it,” he said. “If you ever, uh, y’a know...need to talk. I-I’m here, too.” His face had some coloring again, but not in annoyance this time. His brown eyes looked too warm; they were almost liquid-like.

Michelle stared straight at his nose to avoid the human embodiment of puppy-dog eyes, only to see that he had an adorable splattering of freckles there. _Crap._

“Thanks, Peter.” She smiled at him, a real smile, and she was glad for her slightly darker complexion that hid her blush a bit better than Peter’s pallid one did.

They worked in companionable silence for a time. It was nice and simple. Once they had finished the project, Peter began showing Michelle memes, claiming that he had to compensate for all the time she spent reading books by giving her an ‘internet education.’

“I’m not a geriatric, I know what memes are, Parker.”

“Knowing isn’t _feeling,_ Jones. I can tell by the look on your face, you don’t get the true experience. Now let me show you some more ‘the floor is’ ones”

They’d been at the library for about five hours when Peter said he had to check in with his aunt, which made Michelle do a mental double-take. She hadn’t noticed the time pass, which worried her. She also felt a weird kind of loss when they got on different trains to go to their respective homes. It was a parting, yet a visceral start of _something,_ she realized.

Michelle didn’t know what to make of that, exactly.


	3. Chewbacca's Medal

Peter had expected for most of his fears to disappear once he got his powers. Why would he be afraid of Flash, or muggers, or heights if he was Spider-Man? But alas, while he could physically beat up Flash post-spider bite, he still shied away from his bully just as he did before. Peter stopped muggers regularly while on patrol, but still felt uneasy around them. As for heights, he could feasibly die if he fell from a large height (like the 555 feet of the  _ Washington Monument _ ).

Although he still had fears, Peter was adamant about the absence of one: Michelle. She could be grumbly and harsh, but she was never outright mean (well, most of the time she wasn’t outright mean). Even if her stares could be intimidating as hell during decathlon practices. If anything, their odd friend-acquaintance relationship was on the path to turning friendly after they hung out at the library together.

However, as he approached his and Ned’s usual lunch table to see Michelle sitting beside Ned rather than outside of her customary five-seat buffer, he began to feel unsure about that fear as well. He thought that his quips about Michelle being a ballerina were all in good fun, but with his luck Michelle would somehow beat him up with her secret ballerina-fighter moves.   

Peter sat down beside Ned as he finished telling a joke. He could only tell that it was a joke because Ned was in a fit of laughter once he stopped talking, while Michelle rolled her eyes.

“Hey Peter,” greeted Ned. “Did you know that the last time France used a guillotine was when the first Star Wars movie came out?”

Peter leaned back in surprise. “Um. No.”

“We were talking about how phases of history tend to override knowledge of the linear passage of time,” said Michelle, as if she were talking about the weather. “One of my favorites is that Anne Frank and Martin Luther King, Jr. were born in the same year.” 

“Oh,” was all Peter could say. He had expected to talk to Ned about  _ Rogue One _ and Thanksgiving plans, not weird history trivia.

“It’s pretty rude of you to not have prepared history facts for us, Peter,” Michelle said. She had her usual disinterested expression, but there was a slight difference that Peter noticed - her eyes somehow looked lighter. Must be the fluorescent lights.

“Sorry, I didn’t know there was a test.”

“Hey Michelle, are you into Star Wars?” Ned asked her. 

“Nah, it’s not my thing,” she said, as Ned gasped.

“That’s crazy! How have you lived for so long and experienced so little?” 

Michelle sighed, as if she had heard the question before. “I’d rather read books that discuss and influence the world than watch movies about space wars. Plus, Star Wars isn’t as much of a fictional escape as it used to be, what with there being  _ actual aliens  _ out there that could kill all of us.” 

“Fair point,” Ned said. “But you still need to watch them, as a human being on this currently un-destroyed planet.”

Lunch ended soon after that, and Peter and Ned headed to shop class while Michelle went...to whatever class she had. Peter immediately began interrogating Ned on how he and Michelle were suddenly on their way to making friendship bracelets for each other. 

“She’s really not that bad, Peter.”

“I don’t think she’s that bad. I’m friendly with her! It was just last week when you were the one who wondered how terrifying the world would be if she had gotten bitten instead.” This was true. Ned had always been slightly scared of Michelle; he said that whenever he made eye contact with her, he felt like she was reading his mind.

“The whole secret mind reading thing was just a joke, man,” Ned said. Peter gave him a disbelieving look, which prompted an additional “okay, it wasn’t, but she should really work on her resting expressions! Anyway, she just did me a solid in gym today, and I know she doesn’t really have any friends, so I figured it would be like a ‘thanks for being a good person’ gesture or something.”

“What’d she do?”

Ned turned a bit red and sighed, which told Peter that it was an embarrassing story. “Flash was just...being Flash. You were at another station so he went for me instead. Michelle was there, and she told him off and made him shut up. She didn’t have to, and I really appreciated it, so we’re gonna watch Star Wars with her if she says yes when I ask her.”

Ned rarely had such resolution to his words, so Peter didn’t try to argue. He really didn’t have a problem with Michelle - he was actually starting to think she was a cool person. It just felt odd to do something that was so...friendly with her. Peter thought they were school friends: do projects together, maybe talk sometimes at lunch or between classes. Marathoning a major movie franchise was like a rite of passage for genuine, all-around friendships, in Peter’s book. 

Not that he didn’t want to be Michelle’s friend; the idea just hadn’t developed in his head. Seeing Michelle as a friend was like trying to build a house with no blueprints made first.

* * *

Since Ned was the one who insisted on the plan, the three of them decided to meet at his house for the movies. He had a humble home in an area that bordered between rough city and suburbs, but there was a couch and a television, so it suited their needs.

As for the blueprint, it became apparent that it wasn’t necessary once Michelle, at the end of  _ A New Hope,  _ wondered why Chewbacca didn’t get a medal for bravery at the end like Luke and Han Solo.

“Chewbacca is arguably the best character of this franchise, how did he not get a medal?”

“It’s pretty early on for you to claim one character as being the best in the entire series,” Peter said. “Maybe it’s because since he’s a different species, he’s seen more as a pet? Like if there’s a war movie, and a dog sniffs out a bomb, it’s the guy who disarms it who gets the recognition, not the dog.”

“Well, that’s bullshit,” said Michelle. “In a Star Wars universe where different species have the same cognitive abilities, they should be given equal recognition as their human counterparts for their roles in missions. Also, are you sure about dogs not getting medals? That’s bullshit too.”

“Do we really know Chewbacca’s abilities though? He doesn’t speak English, so all of his sounds could be like a dog’s barks,” Ned said as he dove to the bottom of his bag for a last piece of popcorn.

“Chewbacca showed more emotion in his sounds than some B-movie actors show in English,” said Michelle. Peter was about to retort when she threw a piece of popcorn at his face. 

“Guys, don’t get food all over the couch! Start food wars in your own houses,” said Ned. 

“Of course, Mr. Leeds,” Michelle said. A second later she discreetly flicked some popcorn at him.

“Michelle!”

“I know, I know. My dad actually wants me home soon anyway, so you can save the cleanliness speech for later.” She picked up her mostly-empty bag of popcorn and went to put it in the trash.

Peter felt a pang to his good mood. He thought the three of them would be watching multiple movies, not just the first one. It was 3PM on a Saturday, why did she have to be home now anyway?

“Already?” Ned asked. “Do you need a ride?”

“Nah, I’m good. Thanks, though.” Michelle paused as she stood behind the couch. “This was surprisingly not awful. Thanks for the movie, Leeds.”

“Oh yeah! It was fun. We should watch the rest of them sometime,” Ned said. 

Michelle gave one of her rare smiles (after eating lunch with her for a week, Peter decided that any smile that wasn’t sarcastic was rare); this one was shy. But it only lasted for about a second. 

“That sounds equally not awful. Lemme know, okay?”

“Definitely, yeah,” Peter said. “Hopefully by the time we finish the movies, it’ll go from ‘not awful’ to ‘close to fun.’”

Michelle gave a genuine laugh - not dry, not bitter, just genuine, and her face lit up. “Maybe. Later, losers.” 

She left, and Peter didn’t notice that he was staring after her until Ned nudged him. “I don’t think she reads minds anymore,” he said thoughtfully. “I think that she can just has photographic memory, and replays every face you’ve ever made in her head whenever she looks at you.”

“Probably,” said Peter.

* * *

Peter and Ned spent the rest of the day between playing video games and doing bits of homework. Peter went home at dusk to have dinner with May.

When May found out that Peter was Spider-Man (after all the screaming, threats of physical battery to Tony Stark, and stress crying), she had set guidelines. Peter had to be home by 10 on school nights, and midnight on other nights. If his grades started to slip, he had to cut back to patrolling only two nights a week. And he had to have a sit-down dinner with her every night. 

Peter happily complied with her demands. He felt lighter to not have to lie to his aunt, and was beyond grateful that she hadn’t outright banned him from patrolling (not that he would have listened, but setting boundaries instead made everything easier). 

“Why did you guys watch Star Wars again?” May asked, with a California roll halfway to her mouth. “You’ve both seen it over a hundred times, probably.”

“Well, yeah, but Michelle hasn’t seen any of them, so Ned insisted that we watch them for her sake. Plus, it’s not like those movies ever get old.”

May nodded emphatically, the way she did when teasing him about his dorkish tendencies. “Of course. Does Michelle know that she officially stumbled into the Leeds-Parker house of Star Wars? Also, who is Michelle?”

Peter realized that he had misjudged May’s enthusiastic nod from earlier - a lightbulb must have lit inside her head when she heard a girl’s name somehow mentioned in the same context as Star Wars. 

“She’s on the decathlon team - she’ll be captain next year. I think you’ve met her,” he said, even though he was certain that she hadn’t. 

“Nope,” May said. She tried to be casual, but her overwhelming curiosity betrayed her. “Is she cute?”

“ _ May!” _

“What? Cuteness is subjective, ‘in the eye of the beholder’ and all that. When I saw her I thought she was like the weird girl from  _ The Breakfast Club,  _ but cuter. I was wondering if you thought she was cute.” May stuffed another roll in her mouth as she stared down her nephew.

Peter frowned at the comparison between Michelle and a girl who made art from dandruff, as well as the idea of her being ‘cute.’

“Michelle is...nice. Well, sometimes she is. She’s cool, and I guess she is a girl, but I see her like I see Ned.”

“I think Ned is cute.”

“Oh my God. Please stop saying the word cute.”

* * *

Peter was sitting on the substructure of the Pulaski bridge when he felt his phone vibrate from one of his suit-pockets. He was taking a break after chasing a bike thief for five blocks and eating a protein bar.

He thought it was Aunt May checking up on him, as she did every once in awhile, or maybe Mr. Stark sending him something about Spider-Man suit updates or PR, but it was neither. 

_ MJ (9:03PM): I fixed it.  _

Attached was a picture Michelle had drawn of Chewbacca with a metal at the crowning ceremony from the movie. Chewbacca was done in meticulous detail, to the point where it looked like she etched out individual fur hairs. The humans were stick figures.

_ Peter (9:05PM): y r the rest stick figures?? _

_ MJ (9:06PM): they already got metals in the movie, they don’t need any more attention. _

Peter found himself in a drawn-out text-conversation with Michelle. It was a conversation where topics rose and flew by to lead to other things, each more important and interesting than the last. 

_ MJ (9:58PM): say whatever you want about the power rangers, Arthur was the most savage children’s show I’ve ever seen.  _

_ Peter (9:58PM): isnt arthur like a puny bear? _

_ MJ (9:59PM): he’s an aardvark you imbecile _

He was in the middle of responding when a text from May popped up.

_ May (9:59PM): where r u???? _

Shit. 

Peter called her and said he was on his way home and apologized for being late. Thirty minutes later, he was crawling into his room to find her with her arms crossed and her right foot tapping at a speed that could fringe carpet off of the floor.

“May, I’m really really sorry, I just got distracted! I promise I wasn’t doing anything dangerous.”

“When does Spider-Man ever do anything not dangerous?” May’s eyes were steady on him, but he noticed that they were wide and her voice was an octave higher than normal.

“I know, but. Ugh, just...look at this.” Peter pulled out his phone, showed May his texts with Michelle, and prepared to be bombarded with more questions about if he thought she was cute or not.

May was silent. After a minute, she had a tentative smile. She put his phone on his desk and gave him a hug so tight that almost cut off his ability to breathe. “I just want you to be safe and happy. If you can’t always be safe, I’m glad you’re happy.”

May took a step back, smoothed his hair down, and walked out of his room. 

“But if you’re out past curfew again I will throw out your web shooters.”

* * *

_ MJ (10:05PM): [Arthur fist meme image] when someone calls Arthur a puny bear and doesn’t stay to face the heat _

_ MJ (10:17PM): Just let me know that you’re okay. Night. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know nothing about Star Wars, so let me know if I messed something up.  
> Also: if you haven't seen the canon text messages between Michelle and Peter from the spiderman app, you need to get on that (I love them)


End file.
